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Friday, May 01, 2015

World Cruise - Salvador da Bahia, Brazil

For some reason I can’t explain I had envisioned Salvador da
Bahia as a small town or city up the coast from Rio. As we neared I was amazed
to see it sprawling along the shore about as much as Rio had. It turns out that
Salvador is a city of 6 million people and boasts the world’s largest harbor.
We passed by the skyscrapers and obvious modern part of the city and docked at
the cruise terminal near the older part more historic part of the city. Most of
the points of interest were said to be nearby.

Bob and I had booked a highlights excursion since we knew
nothing about this port. After breakfast, we boarded our tour bus that
thankfully had A/C as it was already heating up. Our guide for the four hour
tour was actually French and had lived in Salvador for 28 years. He spoke very
good English with a French/Portuguese accent which would have worked better if
he’d slowed down his speech a bit. When someone asked him to, he apologized for
the French influence, slowed for a bit, and then picked up speed again.

This was definitely the older poorer section of town.
Housing, while colorful, was obviously made from a lot of found materials. It’s
always a shock to see a rundown and awful looking shack with a line full of
clean clothes hanging out. The clothes never seem to match the background.

Our driver took us first to a small inland lake called Dique
do Tororo. The statues floating on the lake show what a great African influence
there is on Salvador. They depict the Orisha, the deities of the Afro-Brazilian
religion Candomble. They appear to be all female but are really male and female
dressed in African robes. Each represents a different aspect of the religion.

A church was our next stop. The Church of Nosso Senhor do
Bofim has a reputation for miracles. Many who have come there to pray for
healing have received it. To honor the answers to prayer, the recipients have
made casts of the body parts (all sorts of body parts) that were healed and
they hang from the ceiling of a small room adjacent to the sanctuary. As the
small church ran out of room, they suggested people bring pictures instead and
now the walls are covered with pictures of grateful people who have experienced
healing or an answer to other prayers. There is a badminton racket on the wall
along with a few other odd items. Just wondering?

While the body parts room is interesting, it distracts you
from looking around more. When I glanced back into the sanctuary, I realized I
had missed seeing the ceiling that is painted as elaborately as the Sistine
Chapel.

Outside the church, the wrought iron fence is festooned with
prayer ribbons. I marveled at how many times we have seen this similar practice
in other parts of the world, Japan and Turkey to name two. Sometimes I think
our cultures have more in common than less.

An ice cream parlor was up next. Ice cream is not a good
thing for me to eat but I thought I would try it at least since our guide was
so insistent that this was the best ice cream anywhere. The place turned out to
be a Baskin Robbins on steroids only the ice cream was awful. I had papaya
flavored and Bob had coconut. I thought maybe the papaya just didn’t translate
well into an ice cream but Bob’s coconut tasted nothing like coconut either. It
wasn’t worth risking the stomachache and I tossed mine in the trash.

Our last stop was the large market area that was close to
the ship. We had no interest in shopping so we told our guide we were leaving the
tour and would make our own way back to the ship. Across from the market was
the Lacerda Elevator, a tall pillar that rose to the upper level of the city
and contained several elevators to ferry passengers from the lower city to the
upper historic area. For fifteen cents in Brazilian Real (about a nickel in
USD) we rode to the top, a relatively quick and smooth trip.

A cobblestone plaza with people leisurely walking around
enjoying the sunshine greeted us. Several ladies in large white dresses were
strolling around as well. I think they are part of the Candomble religion which
has a great African influence. I need to do more research on that when I have
my own WiFi back at home. We had been told that they would expect money if you
wanted to pose for pictures with them.

Our goal in the historic upper city however was to find the
Igreja De Sao Francisco, the Church and Covenant of St. Francis. We followed
our map from the ship and soon found what we thought was the church. It was a
church but after we paid our $6 BRL each, we discovered it was another church
nearby with a museum. (Our guide had joked that there were 365 churches in the
city, one for each day of the year.)

We excited quickly and finally found the right church a
little way down the street. The cloister was the first area to explore and it
was surrounded by walls of painted tiles depicting all sorts of sayings. Two of
my favorites were “time flies irrevocably” and “nothing is more useful than
silence.”

The amazing part of the church though is its sanctuary whose
walls are covered in sculptures and intricate designs and then painted over
with a combination of oil and gold to give everything a rustic gold look. This
ceiling too was painted with beautiful pictures.

As I write this, I’m looking at my tour pamphlet with the
prayer of St. Francis at the back (in English of course).